History Artist's Concept of the Tucker Talisman ???

This- a Tucker convertible.

http://www.tuckerconvertible.com/test_pic_new_zend.php?id=118

 

lately there has been a lot of things on the HAMB about Harry Miller & his cars & Preston Tucker was a part of things Miller including the Ford race cars of 1935. The article points out the fact that Tucker was overreaching in not only the design of his car but the money involved in such an enterprise. The asumption however that all small scale car manufacturing need massive backing to suceed is both right & wrong at the same time. As with most things in the end whats produced (the product) will fail or suceed on its own merits. The best example is the Japanese automobile. When these cars came to America the only things that could be said about them was they used less gas & ran it seemed forever & although there were many drawbacks those things were what brought folks back for more. A much more intriging question is this, about the same time as Tucker was bringing about his dream Enzio Ferrari was starting to manufacture his cars in Italy & what if instead of trying to build another passanger car Tucker had gone back to his racing & hot rod roots & built sports & racing cars instead of which it proved out was a rich market for these cars in the USA. Maybe today we would be building late 40s Tucker roadsters instead of 30s Fords.

 

Don't forget the efforts of Muntz, Kurtis and Cunningham. Also the fiberglass sportcars that were kits and turnkeys. And then the American branded european cars from Nash and Hudson. These and others were producing low production sportscars after the war but did not last long.

 

I'd love to get my hands a a Tucker so I could gasser it, that would rock.

 

Erik, I'd be one of the LAST to "forget," especially isnce I spent a year writing a book about the defunct makes of past U.S. auto history. Besides post-war tries like Tucker, Muntz, Curtis & Cunningham . . .

we ALSO had Edwards, Keller, Playboy, King Midget and more. The there was one NObody mentions: International Harvester; IH was definitely NOT just a truck manufacturer. All that not to mention the sputtering efforts of once-strong Willys, Crosley, Graham-Paige (aka Frazer) and others.

 

Erik: Addendum here. All the companies I mentioned were HONORABLE companies that tried to actually bring cars to the market. Some others definitely were SCAM schemes!!! Bobbi-Kar comes to mind.

 

Oh, wow, the nash-Healey. But then THAT was a Nash actually, not some start-up.
Nash-Healeys were cool, expensive (can't touch one now!) AND performed VERY well on road courses!

 

51 ChevyCoupe, yup, that convertible seems to have attracted a bunch of attention -- 'cause peopl elike to argue about whether it's for real or not.

I said my piece a couple of days ago on another thread, but -- basically -- my gut feeling is that there are osme genuine original Tucker part in this project . . . BUT beyond that, I honesty don't think it's a car that came out of Tucker's plant.

I WANT it to be, just like I want the Loch Ness Monster to be real, BECAUSE it's stimulating to entertain the slimmest POSSIBILITY of something out-of-the-ordinary!

BUT, again, I get the feeling there are osme genuine Tucker parts in there. Those manifolds with the "TUCKER" name on them, e.g., would not be CHEAP -- just to pull off a hoax!!!